


marsh-mired

by Stabbsworth



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Gen, Merm Plague, Mermic Plague, victorian au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:40:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23222641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stabbsworth/pseuds/Stabbsworth
Summary: Wilson has very itchy hands and not much of a clue as to what caused them. It'll probably be fine.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is a super quick one-shot that i may expand into a full fic. god knows, that depends on whether people actually want me to.

He thought nothing of it when he woke up with his hands itching, having assumed it to be related to fleabites.

Damn him and his easy-to-distract nature. He probably picked them up off a stray cat or something.

He hummed as he put his regular gloves on and started the workday.

Within a few hours, he'd managed to stabilize two people, do a house-call on one and see if she needed anything, and give Jack's niece a check-up.

That kid was getting better, but apparently Jack thought it would benefit her to have therapy.

He was a general practitioner -- he could quite easily direct Jack to someone else, though.

Between segments of downtime, he was easily able to sneak in a few scratches at his hands. They were abominably itchy today, and usually fleabites would be gone within an hour. Did he brush up against some stinging nettles?

Something wasn't quite right about it, but he pushed it to the back of his mind as he practically flopped into his favourite chair.


	2. a quick call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After accidentally taking a nap, Wilson makes a phone call to someone that could reasonably offer some sort of advice.

Well, that wasn't good.

He'd taken his gloves off to get a better look at his hands, still groggy from a rather abrupt nap.

Maybe he should've had a worse reaction, but he stared at the scales on his hands for a while longer, then felt them just to make sure it wasn't a hallucination.

He was reasonably sure they weren't.

He yawned again as he stretched out his fingers, almost darkly marvelling at how the skin peeled off. It was interesting to have a live test subject for the rather recent plague that he couldn't do anything about.

Wilson sat up a bit more, back crackling as he adjusted his position to a much better one for the spinal cord, inspecting his hands again to make sure the scales (and the relatively mild webbing of his fingers) were still there, before finally deciding on what to do.

Call Wickerbottom about it.

Maybe she'd know something to at least get his hands to stop itching.

His hands shook as he dialled her number, holding the receiver to his ear. Whether his hands were shaking from shock or simply tiredness or maybe wear-and-tear, or, god forbid, some unholy combination of the three, he wouldn't know.

Wickerbottom answered, and he could hear her light and airy voice on the other end. He swallowed, thickly, then began his usual spiel.

"Greetings, this is Wilson here."

Short and simple, to the point, and oh, how he hated not having a script.

"Good to see- er, hear you, dear. Pray tell, what caused you to call at this hour of the night?"

"You're practically the only one that's still up, ma'am." A pause, the line crackled a little. "I also just woke up."

"Couldn't you have sent a letter?"

"I don't think I could pay someone a shilling to run about in the dark just to send some sort of letter, ma'am. Anyways, I wanted to… er."

"Go on?"

"...I know this may come as a bit of a shock, but…" He trailed off, before getting to the point in a blur of words and vowels and syllables. "Imayhavescalesonmyhandsnowand--"

"Could you repeat that? The line is being awfully finicky tonight."

Deep breaths. "Do you know if the plague -- the one that's been turning everyone into merms -- do you know if the plague causes an abominable amount of itching?"

"...That is one of the symptoms, yes." Her voice had taken a graver tone to it.

There was a slight laugh from his end. "Oh, lord. Well, I have scales now. And… uh, a little bit of webbing between fingers."

Wickerbottom sighed. "You're not in any pain, are you?"

"...Not really. I'd've scratched at myself until I bled, but that seemed like a poor idea at the time."

"Do you have anything to cover it up? I don't think you'd want it to get out to the general populace that their only doctor has the Mermic plague."

"I stay covered up most of the time anyways." A chuckle. Half of this doesn't feel real. "In all seriousness, I have gloves, a cloak and anything else I'll need to stay covered up. I should be able to do my job for a while longer."

"Mm. It has got to be past midnight by now. I'll see you later, dear, ta-ta for now."

"Goodnight, Ms. Wickerbottom."

Wilson huffed out a sigh as the line went down, replaced by a constant beep. He silently placed the receiver back into its dock, before dragging his hands down his face.

Like hell if he was going to be able to sleep by now. He hadn't even had dinner.

Maybe this would blow over. Hopefully it would blow over.

Oh, who was he kidding, this would not simply blow over. Life is not as simple as that, and it has no intentions of ever being as simple as that.

Wilson sat there for a while longer, sleepily blinking as he stared at one of the walls in the room that he'd holed himself up in, before getting up, stretching his back and hearing a satisfying series of pops and cracks.

Off to bed. He was probably not going to get all that much sleep, but it couldn't hurt to try regardless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> assumedly, this takes place in the late victorian period. they actually had telephones somewhere as early as 1875.
> 
> wilson is tired and he hasn't even suffered yet.


End file.
